


Your Ocean

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drowning imagery, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sea Monsters, Urban Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29121405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: It's the one place Chan doesn't want to get lost in.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Lee Chan | Dino
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Your Ocean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shyish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shyish/gifts).



Every small town has a freaky urban legend. Or two. Or three. Tales about monsters and beasts that lurked in the shadows. Ghosts that haunted the night.  _ So you better keep your doors locked _ , the old folk would say.  _ You better not roam the streets after dark _ .

Sometimes, it’s the parents trying to keep their wayward children from making rash decisions.

Other times, it’s a made-up story the locals use to keep pesky outsiders away.

Whether it’s keeping people out or keeping people in, frightening tales of horror and violence and death tend to keep people in line. And maybe, just  _ maybe _ , there’s truth to the ridiculous story in this particular seaside town. 

It’s a terrible, sad, strange story about a boy with jagged teeth and glowing eyes and razor-sharp claws who lived at the bottom of the ocean and dragged anyone without a pure heart down below the waves forever.

_ Maybe _ there’s truth to it.

Chan had never really wanted to believe in something that sounded so silly, but he also couldn’t deny how many people in this tiny little town went missing. And he also couldn’t deny how little people cared about those that went missing.

That’s just how things had been for as long as he could remember.

“That girl who worked at the stationary shop has been gone about a week,” Chan heard growing up.

Or, “That fellow from the bookshop disappeared.”

Or, “I think my neighbor is gone.”

No matter the story, no matter the circumstance, whoever replied to such harrowing news usually just shrugged their shoulders and went, “I guess they got snatched, then. Huh?”

Snatched. Taken.

By the vicious monster who lived in the sea.

“They say he calls out to them,” Chan remembered an old friend saying. “And no one can resist his call.”

The lure of the sea. The silence of the depths.

It was such a frightening story, regardless of if Chan believed in such a thing or not.

_ Maybe people just want to leave this tiny little town _ , he always thought.  _ Perhaps I’ll leave, too, and everyone will think the monster got me. _

But even the idea of that sent chills down his spine.

He couldn’t deny that there were numerous nights when he was walking home from work and he looked out across the rocky, shell-covered beach and swore he saw something out in the water. Just below the cresting waves. 

Watching him. Waiting for him.

Hansol startled and whirled towards him. He asked, “Are you saying you’ve actually seen that thing?”

“Seen  _ him _ ,” Chan corrected. He sat next to Hansol on the sand, cross-legged, legs red and sunburnt. He stared out at the frothy waves rushing up to kiss the sand. “I’ve seen him with my own eyes. Seen his face. Held his hand. Wiped the tears off of his face.” And, in the silence that followed such a confession, he thought Hansol would laugh and call him insane. He thought Hanosl was going to make fun of him for believing in childhood fantasies.

But… “Whoever sees that thing disappears,” Hansol whispered conspiratorially, as if he didn’t want the murky gray-green sea to overhear him. “But you’re still here. Untouched.”

Yet Chan was not too sure how true that was. He doubted he could say that he came out of the experience completely unharmed. Unchanged. 

That meeting still lingered in his mind. On his skin. In his bones. Like a curse. Like a long-gone memory. 

Every time he closed his eyes to sleep at night, he felt like he was drowning. Water rushing into his lungs. Sheer cold slowing his heart. Every time he fell asleep, he dreamed of being pulled under by a pair of shockingly warm and gentle hands. 

Chan could so clearly picture the monster’s face. Even now. 

Those big, round eyes. Those jagged shark teeth. That bottomless mouth that could easily swallow him whole. 

“How did it happen,” Hansol asked. “With the monster, I mean.” He readjusted the big straw hat that ruffled his straw-colored hair, tilting it so that the brim kept the afternoon sun out of his eyes. “How did you meet him?”

Chan glanced around to make sure no one was listening to them but it was a futile move. 

They were alone out here. 

The beach in this town was always empty. Always. But that was to be expected when the ocean was known to take and take and  _ take _ . 

Even the two of them sitting there on the sand, dry and warm, carried with it a great risk. 

Only boys their age would be brave enough or stupid enough for such foolishness.

And Chan hoped he was being brave. 

_ How did you meet him?  _ Hansol’s question echoed in his head.

It was a difficult thing to remember. The memory was faded and frayed around the edges like it was something that happened years and years ago, like some childhood trauma resurfacing. Like some past life that he was trying to recall.

This had happened last weekend, though. Just a handful of days in the past.

“Remember when that big storm hit,” Chan asked. 

Hansol nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”

Chan closed his eyes as he finally managed to piece together the imagery.

Saturday’s storm had raged late into the night and on into the early morning, bringing howling winds and pelting rain and beastly roars of thunder. The rain had flooded Main Street. The winds had knocked the power out in half the town and dragged a poorly-moored fishing boat out of the inlet and into the open sea. The thunder had yanked Chan from out of his sleep, rattling the bones of his house as lightning flashed.

Yet it had been the first time Chan was not afraid of a storm.

“He called me,” Chan said. Not on the phone, of course, but in Chan’s head. The monster had sang to him in his stretched-out thoughts as Chan crawled out of bed and slipped on his shoes. “I went down to the beach--”

“In  _ that _ weather,” Hansol interrupted.

Chan kept on like he hadn’t heard. “--and he was sitting out there. Out here.” He waved a hand and the empty stretch of beach around them. “Just like we are right now.”

Hansol sat up a little so that he could peer into Chan’s face. Like he needed to gauge his childhood friend’s level of seriousness. When he noticed that Chan was not joking in the slightest, his face paled. Even beneath the flushed-pink hue of his sweaty skin. Hansol swallowed dryly and asked, “What was he doing?”

“Watching the storm.” Chan looked away from the rolling waves and stared up at Hansol’s face. “He was just watching the waves crash. Watching the lightning split the sky. Watching the wind rip the flags off the poles.” And even at that moment, talking about it all of those days later, Chan still remembered how calm the monster looked in the center of all of that chaos. 

“And what did  _ you _ do,” Hansol wondered, putting a reassuring hand on Chan’s knee.

Chan lowered his gaze to the sand. “What else could I do? I sat down next to him.”

“Was he scary? Like everyone says? Was he vicious?”

“No. He was sad.” 

So terribly sad. 

As if his whole world had been taken away from him. 

Chan said, “He didn’t do anything to me. Or say anything. Even when I comforted him. He just… He just looked at me. Then he stood up and left. Walked straight into the ocean and disappeared.”

“You sure it was the monster? It could have been a schoolmate or somebody from the cannery. Are you positive you didn’t watch someone jump in the ocean to--” Hansol choked on the morbid, uncomfortable words.

“He changed,” Chan answered. “When he walked out into the water, he took on a different form. Scales and gills and fins and claws. He glowed a little. Like something from the bottom of the ocean.” He may have looked human but he  _ wasn’t _ human. “I thought I was dreaming,” Chan said. “I thought I was sleepwalking.” Chan looked out at the ocean. It looked so empty from where he sat. Wide and expansive and blue and lonely. “But I still had to walk all the way back home in the rain and wind. Soaked to my bones. Freezing.” He laughed. Humorlessly. Nervousness bubbled up in him. He hadn’t meant to tell Hansol all of this but he felt so much better now that it was all out of his mouth. “I want to see him again.”

Hansol leaned into his face again, eyes wide with worry. “Do you think that’s safe?”

“No,” Chan said.

There weren’t too many urban legends that were  _ safe _ .

🐚

Chan wouldn’t call it love. Not yet.

That was too strong of a word. Too vast and deep of an emotion to pin on something like this.

This was curiosity, he told himself over and over again. He just wanted to see the monster again. Sit next to him. Hold his hand. Make him smile. His heart lurched in his chest with the  _ need _ to do something like that.

And he wasn’t all too sure where such yearning came from.

It almost felt misplaced.

But as the days passed, he couldn’t help but think even more strongly about it.

He couldn’t stop considering the very strong possibility that he’d seen the monster before.

Not just that one time on the beach last weekend.

Not just fleeting glances of shadows and seafoam as he walked down the boardwalk at night.

He’d held hands with the monster before. Years ago. When he was just a kid.

He was sure of it.

The monster had saved his life. Saved him from drowning.

Chan was sure of it, but he could never remember more than the phantom burn of water in his lungs.

He had told the monster his name back then, calm and quiet and still despite how close he’d come to death. And the monster had told Chan his own name.

Wonwoo.

It was like a pact. A promise that Chan had completely forgotten. Until now. Here. In the depths of his liquid-blue dreams.

His heart pounded so hard in his chest, so full of longing and want, that his erratic pulse woke him from his sleep one night.

Chan was drenched in a cold sweat, shivering despite the comforter he was wrapped in. Cold despite the warm summer night.

That weird, icy feeling in him crawled over his skin. Made him itch. Like something was inside of him trying to get free. Trying to run.

Chan threw off his covers and crawled to the edge of the bed so that he could stand. “What’s wrong with me,” he asked the dark, still air of his cramped little bedroom.

It felt like heartburn. It felt like something in his chest was catching fire. 

But he recognized the sensation. Warmth around his ankles. A tugging feeling beneath his bare feet like the tide yanking sand out from beneath him as the waves receded. 

The monster was calling him. Just like the other weekend.

Just like ten years ago.

Fear should have been coursing through Chan’s veins. If he was smart, he would have dove back beneath the covers of his bed and hid. Slept. But excitement brought a grin to his face. Anticipation. He would get to see that sad, lonely monster again.

No. Not a monster.

Wonwoo.

Chan rushed to put his clothes on, to put on his shoes. He ran towards the front door of his house and took off into the quiet, moonlit night.

🐚

The sky looked a little different out over the sea. Like it could breathe a little easier out here. Be a little bit more open.

Bright, twinkling stars dotted the purple-blue cosmos in glittering constellations. The clouds were thin, delicate wisps of white. The low-hanging moon bathed the little town in velvety, silver light.

But the white sand beach was empty. 

Chan slapped a hand over his chest. Over his heart. Partially to calm himself after running such a terrible distance, but also to soothe the ache in his heart as he considered the possibility that he’d been wrong about all of this.

That he didn’t know Wonwoo at all. That he’d dreamed all of this up.

“Where are you,” he asked the night air, desperate. He could taste the salt of the sea on his tongue. He swallowed thickly. “Where are you, Wonwoo?”

“Here.”

The voice seemed to come from the ocean itself. Seemed to  _ be _ the ocean itself.

Chan spun around to face the sound.

And then there he was. 

The boy from the storm.

Magnificent and monstrous.

He stood tall, not in but  _ on _ the water, like it was nothing for him to walk across the surface. The moonlight danced across the contours of his sun-baked skin. He glowed with a light of his own. As if something in him was glittering beneath his bones. Although his pitch black hair was not beneath the waves, it still moved about his head as if dragged by a gentle current. 

Wonwoo held out a sea-green hand. “I’ve been waiting for so long.”

That was all Chan needed.

He kicked off his shoes. Peeled off his socks. Threw off his shirt and ran out into the warm waves. He ran and ran. Until the water was calf-deep. Until it was thigh-deep. Waist-deep. Until he couldn’t touch the bottom anymore and had to swim against the surge of incoming waves.

From the shore, Wonwoo had looked like he’d been so much closer. But the farther Chan swam, the farther the boy seemed to be from him.

“You finally remembered,” Wonwoo’s voice thrummed through Chan’s ribs.

“I’m so sorry I forgot you,” Chan called back. He was breathless and exhausted but still he swam on, fighting the tide. Needing to be closer. “I didn’t remember you even when I was looking at you.” He pushed himself harder, swam faster, but Wonwoo’s glowing eyes never seemed to get closer.

Chan chanced a glance over his shoulder and realized with a sinking fear that the coast was terribly, awfully far away. Nothing but yellow, twinkling, unreachable lights on the horizon.

“Do you trust me,” Wonwoo asked.

Chan turned back around and looked out at Wonwoo’s outstretched hand. Chan’s arms burned from the strain. His legs slowed from fatigue. But still… He nodded. “Yes. I do.”

As if some spell was broken, the monster boy was no longer impossibly far away. He was  _ right there _ . Right in front of Chan. Grasping his hand and pulling him down under the water.

Chan did not fight. He gulped down air, held it, and let himself be dragged into the sea’s depths. The water did not sting his eyes. In fact, he could see quite some distance due to the glow that seeped out of the monster boy’s skin.

It didn’t take long for Chan to acknowledge that he was at his limits. His lungs ached for oxygen that was impossibly far away. He pulled against Wonwoo’s grip on him, finally afraid like he probably should have been all this time. Since the beginning.

“You have to trust me,” Wonwoo said, looking right into Chan’s soul with those ghastly bright, glowing eyes.

_ Was this what happened to the others _ , Chan thought.  _ Did he demand the others trust him and then they swallowed down sea water?  _ His vision dimmed as his body struggled. He pulled against the monster’s grip on him more firmly. Trying to break free. Trying to save himself.

“You don’t trust me at all, do you?” The monster boy looked pained. Lonely. “Even after all this time?”

God, he looked so sad. So disappointed. 

Chan hated himself. Hated that he hadn’t even considered how long ten years of waiting was.

Chan understood, then. The others drowned because they  _ didn’t _ trust. Because they’d done what he was doing and tried to pull away. “I trust you,” he said, the syllables leaving his mouth in a tumble of bubbles. And such words should have robbed him of the last of his air but he discovered that he could breathe. In and out, in and out. He could  _ breathe _ !

“I thought you had broken your promise,” said Wonwoo. “You looked me right in the eye and I knew you didn’t remember.” His skin glowed. His eyes flashed white. He opened that big, black mouth of his and revealed the rows of his razor teeth and his hideous, forked tongue.

But it wasn’t a threat. 

It was a smile. 

The smile Chan had longed to see for ten years. 

Wonwoo reached out a strangely webbed hand and gently touched Chan’s face. “I’ve been looking for you for years. But none of  _ them _ were you.” His thumb dragged across Chan’s lip. “Do you want to come with me? I have so much to show you.” 

Chan didn’t know where Wonwoo would take him. He didn’t know how long he’d be gone or if it would hurt to go. Or if he would ever be able to come back.  _ Yes _ , he wanted to say.  _ Yes, yes, a thousand times yes _ . He wanted to make up for forgetting. He wanted to make up for growing up and giving up. He wanted to make up for not believing. 

But Chan had his mother and father and grandmother.

Chan had his new job and his very own apartment.

Chan had Hansol.

And maybe Wonwoo saw it in his eyes. He saw it and Chan watched the monster’s heart break.

But… 

“I understand,” Wonwoo said. He steeled his expression but his eyes remained sad. “Can I kiss you goodbye?”

Chan gripped Wonwoo’s neck, pulled close and smashed their lips together. Wonwoo tasted like salt and sadness and longing. He tasted like a farewell.

Chan gasped. Choked. He sat up straight.

He was in bed, back in his apartment, with early morning sunlight shining through the windows.

Had he been dreaming?

But when Chan moved, his bedsheets were absolutely drenched, dark puddles dotted the hardwood flooring and the stench of the sea hung heavy in the air.


End file.
